The instructions in this article do not work with Ubuntu and its’ variants, such as Debian or Mint, as they use apt-get instead of yum. Read on if you’re a CentOS or related user.

When I first started using CentOS 7, I often selected the advanced packages during the graphical installation process, such as ‘Web Server’ or ‘GNOME Desktop’. The problem, was that I wanted to create a LAMP server with Samba, Git and phpMyAdmin for web development and none of the options seemed to fit. As a result, I eventually chose a minimal install and manually downloaded individual packages with the CentOS/RedHat specific ‘yum’ command.
I’m happy with how that went and have thoroughly documented this with my ‘A CentOS Web Development Environment’. In the meantime, I wanted to delve a little further into the ‘yum’ command to find out a bit more about the available packages.Continue Reading →

Quite often, I use the Pareto principle of spending 20% of the effort to get 80% of the results. On other occasions, I spend far too much time to get something just right.

From DOS 1.0 in 1981 to Windows 8 and Linux today, I’ve installed dozens of micro and minicomputer operating systems over the years. To me, an OS needs to fit like a glove, which is why I’ve spent considerable time looking for a version of Linux that will complement my Windows 7 desktop environment. Being on a tight budget, I use Oracle’s VirtualBox instead of VMWare Player as it includes a Snapshot facility.Continue Reading →

With the recent purchase of an Arduino microcontroller, my interest in electronics was rekindled after many years hiatus. One of my goals back in the day was to create a colour organ where lghts would flash in beat with the music. With the Arduino, I can easily do that and much more, so I set about coming up with a project that made use of modern day LED’s. The result will be Christmas lights that: